Marine algae are significant ingredients to formulate drugs for treating disease as they possess various bioactive potentials. Different marine algae (Laurencia papillosa and cylindrica (red algae) were collected from Red Sea (Faied and Ein Al-SokhnaSuez). Ulva fasciata (green algae) was collected from the Mediterranean Sea (Abu-Qir near Alexandria) and Dilophus fasciola (brown algae) was colle...

This review covers the marine natural products literature for the year 2000 and is organized phylogenetically, with sections on marine microorganisms and phytoplankton, green algae, brown algae, red algae, sponges, coelenterates, bryozoans, molluscs, tunicates. echinoderms and miscellaneous marine organisms. There is an emphasis on new structures, stressing their biological activities, source o...

Periodic blooms of algae, including true algae, dinoflagellates, and cyanobacteria or blue-green algae have been reported in marine and freshwater bodies throughout the world. Although many blooms are merely an aesthetic nuisance, some species of algae produce toxins that kill fish, shellfish, humans, livestock and wildlife. Pigmented blooms of toxinproducing marine algae are often referred to ...

Cryptomonad algae acquired their plastids by the secondary endosymbiotic uptake of a eukaryotic red alga. Several other algal lineages acquired plastids through such an event [1], but cryptomonads are distinguished by the retention of a relic red algal nucleus, the nucleomorph [2]. The nucleomorph (and its absence in other lineages) can reveal a great deal about the process and history of endos...

Mediterranean gorgonian forests are threatened by several human activities and are affected by climatic anomalies that have led to mass mortality events in recent decades. The ecological role of these habitats and the possible consequence of their loss are poorly understood. Effects of gorgonians on the recruitment of epibenthic organisms were investigated by manipulating presence of gorgonians...

Snow algae are poly-extremophilic microalgae and important primary colonizers and producers on glaciers and snow fields. Depending on their pigmentation they cause green or red mass blooms during the melt season. This decreases surface albedo and thus further enhances snow and ice melting. Although the phenomenon of snow algal blooms has been known for a long time, large aspects of their physio...

Two novel squalene-derived triterpenes, spirodehydrovenustatriol (3) and 14-keto-dehydrothyrsiferol (4) were isolated from the red alga Laurencia viridis, together with two new and unusual C(17) terpenoids, adejen A (5) and B (6). These truncated structures possess structural similarities with other known squalene metabolites and their biogenetic origin has been proposed on the basis of an oxid...

Photosynthesis is a critical biochemical process on our planet providing food for most life. The common ancestor of plants and their algal sisters gained photosynthesis through the engulfment and retention of a cyanobacterial primary endosymbiont that evolved into a photosynthetic organelle, the plastid (Bhattacharya et al., 2004). In photosynthetic eukaryotes, the essential series of reactions...